War Studies

Date of publication: 26/10/2018 Description: Since the year 2000, the UN Security Council has adopted 8 resolutions which make up what is known as the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda. These resolutions work to promote gender equality and strengthen women’s rights, protections, and participation in mending conflict-torn societies. The first of these historic UNSC resolutions, 1325, provides a political framework that outlines how women and gender perspectives are crucial for negotiating sustainable peace, planning refugee camps, implementing peacekeeping operations, and recovering conflict-torn societies. The advent of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda has been followed by a growing emphasis on the need to ‘mainstream’ gender into the institutions that govern and practice war and conflict management. Additionally, universities are seen to be increasingly incorporating more feminist teaching, courses and programmes on gender and Int’l relations in response to student demand. As the need for gender education and perspectives are increasingly emphasized and understood in the realm of conflict and security, how are military and academic institutions following through on the need to diversify training and teaching practices? To help us delve into this question, we are first going to hear from Dr. Hannah Partis-Jennings, Lecturer at Loughborough University, and Dr. Katharine Wright, Lecturer at Newcastle University, who I interviewed the day before they co-convened a BISA Gendering IR Working Group workshop at KCL titled, Training, Teaching and Learning Gender in War and Militarism. Then, to conclude this podcast, we are going to welcome Dr. Amanda Chisolm who is a new Senior Lecturer and the Diversity and Inclusion lead in the School of Security Studies at KCL for a discussion on the importance of teaching and learning on gender in the context of Security Studies. _________________________ This podcast was produced by Kirk Allen.

Date of recording: 24/09/2018 Description: On the 24th of September, the Department of War Studies and the Conflict, Security and Development Research Group welcomed Jeff Colgan, Associate Professor at Brown University, for his talk titled, 'Should the US withdraw from the Middle East.' According to Prof. Colgan, ‘over the past 25 years, US foreign policy outcomes in the Middle East have gone from more or less acceptable to downright awful.’ Arguably, the most notable US foreign policy failure in the region was the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, but to this day, US success in the Middle East is further challenged by complex conflicts, including those in Afghanistan and Syria, and is also impacted by the presence of terrorist organizations within Middle Eastern states faced with instability. Due to undesirable and costly outcomes in the past, many in Washington DC have contemplated whether the US should withdraw from the Middle East. However, if the US were to withdraw, this decision could not only impact US national interests but also have security consequences for the Middle East. Bio: Jeff Colgan is the Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Watson Institute for Public and International Affairs at Brown University. His research focuses on international order, especially as related to energy and the environment. His book, Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War, was published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press. He has published work in International Organization, Foreign Affairs, World Politics, International Security and elsewhere. He also occasionally blogs at the Monkey Cage and Foreign Affairs. On Twitter, he is @JeffDColgan. Prof. Colgan previously taught at the School of International Service of American University 2010-2014, and was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC in 2012-13. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University, and was a Canada-US Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley, where he earned a Master’s in Public Policy. Prof. Colgan has worked with the World Bank, McKinsey & Company, and The Brattle Group. ______________________ For more news and information on upcoming events, please visit our website at kcl.ac.uk/warstudies.

Date of publication: 21/09/2018 Description: On 4-6 Sept, the Connections UK wargaming conference, hosted by King’s College London, once again succeeded in bringing together wargaming users, practitioners and academics "to advance and sustain the art, science and application of wargaming." In light of this event, we are once again going to talk wargaming. Despite how it sounds, Wargaming is not necessarily a leisure activity. Although war games are interesting and thrilling to play, many of these games are played in order to simulate and model armed conflict without the actual use of force. Through these wargames practitioners in the armed forces and academics alike often seek to better understand the dynamics of past and even future conflicts. In this edition of the War Studies Podcast, we are going hear from three of this year’s Connections UK organisers and participants broadly about wargaming in the academic and professional contexts as well as wargame design. Interviewees: - Prof Philip Sabin, Prof of Strategic Studies - Jim Wallman, Director of Stone, Paper, Scissors - Anna Nettleship, Former Arabic Linguist in the US Military and War Studies MA Student Featured recording; - Prof Wyn Bowen, Head of the School of Security Studies ________________________________________ This podcast was produced by Kirk Allen.

Date of recording: 13/06/2018 Description: On the 13th of June, the School of Security Studies hosted its annual Understanding Complex Conflicts research conference, which showcased some of the research currently underway in the Departments of War Studies and Defence Studies. As the centenary of the First World War is nearing a close, the first panel of this research conference was dedicated to the exploration of the complexities of the Great War. This panel covered topics such as military innovation and politics in the British Army and the resolution and commemoration of the First World War. Let's listen in on this fascinating panel, starting with an introduction of our panelists by panel chair and Director of the First World War Centenary Cultural Programme, Jenny Waldman. _____________________ Panel: The First World War Chair: Jenny Waldman, Director of the First World War Centenary Cultural Programme. Panelists: Aimee Fox: ‘Military Innovation and the Politics of Command in the British Army, 1914-1918’. Bill Philpott: A Complex Security Challenge: Resolving the First World War Helen McCartney: ‘Commemoration and the First World War in Britain’. _______________ Remember, for more news and information about our upcoming events, please visit our website at kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies.

Event recording from 28/02/2018 Since 2015 NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence has developed a successful and long-lasting partnership with the King's Centre for Strategic Communications(KCSC) at King's College London. Based on this rewarding experience, the KCSC and the NATO StratCom COE have been developing new ways to put their cooperation into practice. The book “Fake News: A Roadmap’ is one of them. In this project, a group young talented students from the Strategic Communications Masters at King’s College London were encouraged to try and bring some clarity to the ongoing discussion on fake news. Introductory remarks by Dr Neville Bolt, Director of the KCSC and Jānis Sārts, Director of the NATO StratComms COE. Discussion with Jente Althuis and Leonie Haiden (editors of the book "Fake News: A Roadmap"), moderated by Alex Aiken, Executive Director, UK Government Communications. The book's authors are Iona Allan, Jente Althuis, Alexander Averin, Giulia Conci, Sarah Dooley, Erin Duffy, Douglas Gray, Leonie Haiden, Mitchell Ilbury, Natalia Kantovich, Chelsea McManus, Celeste Michaud, Emma Moore, Kierat Ranautta-Sambhi, and Siri Strand. Subscribe to the KCSC newsletter to get a free copy of the book 'Fake News: A Roadmap': http://kcsc.link/signup Learn more about the MA Strategic Communications here - https://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/taught-courses/strategic-communications-ma-pg-cert-pg-dip.aspx Learn more about the NATO StratCom COE: https://www.stratcomcoe.org/ Event recording produced by Ivan Seifert.

Here at the Department of War Studies, we are particularly concerned with contemporary and historical security challenges – all kinds of war, terrorism and more. What these security challenges have in common is that at the heart of each is some aspect of conflict. So, it is not surprising that international organisations and governments have invested billions of dollars in funding projects in post-conflict settings. These projects are supposed to help war-torn and divided societies to reconcile. But what is reconciliation? How can it be achieved and measured? And what role do art projects play in the process of so-called ‘reconciliation’? In this podcast, we hear from Dr Milena Michalski and Professor James Gow, discussing the Art & Reconciliation project. This is a pioneering, multi-disciplinary research initiative, funded by the AHRC, which brings together King’s College London, University of the Arts London and the London School of Economics, in order to explore these issues. To find out more about the Art & Reconciliation project, visit www.artreconciliation.org and for more on Milena Michalski’s work see: www.milenamichalski.com. To find out more about the artists discussed in the podcast, please visit the links below: - Alketa Khafa Mripa is a conceptual artist; she created ‘Thinking of You’, in which she filled a football stadium in Kosovo with dresses to remember victims of war rape. See: www.tracesproject.org/alketa-xhafa-mripa/. - Gunther Herbst is a painter who works with ideas around memory, memorialisation and monuments in South Africa. See: www.guntherherbst.com. - Emma Elliott is a sculptor, and her work ‘Reconciliation’ relates to the Holocaust, whilst also referencing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. See: emmaelliott.com/work. This podcast was produced by Ivan Seifert and Bisi Olulode. UPCOMING EVENTS AT KING'S COLLEGE LONDON SHARKS IN THE CHANNEL AND LIONS ON THE LOOSE: RUMOUR AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR Rumour-mongering was universally denounced as a pathological, destructive condition that threatened the war effort. Professor Jo Fox will argue that, on the contrary, rumour is an inherently human behaviour and that studying rumour offers the historian an insight into complex human behaviours, motivations, and mentalities at times of crisis. 🗓Feb 6, 2018 ⏰ 5.30 PM📍Strand Campus 👉RSVP: http://bit.ly/2GxmcMm NEW ARCHITECTURE OF UN PEACEKEEPING AND PEACE BUILDING OPERATIONS How do you make peacekeeping work in environments where no peace existed to begin with? Lieutenant-General (Retd) Floriano Peixoto will discuss attempts to make peace operations a more effective tool for tackling today's complex security challenges. 🗓Feb 6, 2018 ⏰ 6.30 PM📍Somerset House East Wing 👉RSVP: http://bit.ly/2nBHpfC HISTORY AND STATECRAFT Why is it important to include an understanding of history in the making of statecraft? History enables leaders to assess past experiences and learn from ill-conceived policies. Yet, according to Professor Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou and Professor Jussi Hanhimäki, history is, to a large extent, neglected by policymakers.   🗓Feb 7, 2018 ⏰ 1.30 PM📍Strand Campus 👉RSVP: http://bit.ly/2GD5GdU

Event recording from 4/12/2017; introductory remarks by Dr Natasha Kuhrt. Professor Sakwa explores how the tension between Russia and the Atlantic community mirrored a fundamental realignment of the international system from the late 1980s onwards. He provides a new analysis of the end of the Cold War and the subsequent failure to create a comprehensive and inclusive peace order in Europe. The end of the Cold War did not create a sustainable peace system. Instead, for a quarter of a century a 'cold peace' reflected the tension between cooperative and competitive behaviour. None of the fundamental problems of European security were resolved, and tensions accumulated. Speaker biography: Richard Sakwa is Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent. Prof. Sakwa is an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies (CREES) at the University of Birmingham and since September 2002 a member of Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences. His latest book, 'Russia Against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order' is published October 2017 with Cambridge University Press. This event was a Russian and Eurasian Security Seminar in association with the King's Russia Institute.

What made the transition of hegemonic power from British to American dominance uniquely cooperative and nonviolent? In this podcast, Dr Kori Schake analyses the so-called “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom. One of her main argument is that the transition of hegemonic power between the United Kingdom and the United States was peaceful primarily because both countries shared similar domestic ideologies. But how will this special relationship continue under the Trump administration? Dr Kori Schake is a distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institute. She is the editor, with Jim Mattis, of the book Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military. She teaches "Thinking About War" at Stanford University, is a contributing editor at the Atlantic, and also writes for War on the Rocks and Foreign Policy. The KCL Centre for Grand Strategy hosted a public lecture by Dr. Kori Schake on the subject of her most recent book, Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony (Harvard University Press). Dr Schake's lecture was live-streamed and can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/2AwLg3v This podcast was produced by Ivan Seifert. UPCOMING EVENTS AT KING'S COLLEGE LONDON COMPETING MEMORIES: TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION IN SIERRA LEONE AND PERU 12th December | 18:30-19:30 | Bush House 8th Floor North Side RSVP: http://bit.ly/2kET2Et Dr Rebekka Friedman brings her unique perspective to the challenges of transitional justice in post-conflict societies. How do the peoples of nations begin healing after tremendous trauma and loss? FEMALE ENGAGEMENT IN HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS 17th January | 18:00-19:30 | War Studies Meeting Room (K6.07) RSVP: http://bit.ly/2jwkYas Our panel will discuss the creation and evolution of FETs as well as examine how these programmes have shaped the role of women in the military. Our panellists will also explore models of female engagement in hostile environments and the future of military leadership. Register here. KING'S ENGAGED IN AFRICA: SECURITY AND DEVELOPMENT RSVP: http://bit.ly/2yP2WYT Organised by the Africa Research Group (War Studies, KCL) and the African Leadership Centre (KCL), King’s Engaged in Africa showcases the work of King’s College London researchers actively engaged in and with the African continent, and draws on perspectives from the wider African research community. The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Security and Development’ broadly defined. For more information about upcoming events in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, visit: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/events/index.aspx

In this week’s episode, we are bringing you interviews with Professor Vivienne Jabri and Amanda Faber, founder of the Soldiers and Arts Academy, talking about the interface between arts and academia and how the arts can support war veterans. If you would like to watch the live-streamed video of the Remember Dance performance, you can find it here: http://bit.ly/2AjjVAK. UPCOMING EVENTS AT KING’S COLLEGE LONDON THE MARJAN MARSH LECTURE 14th November 2017 (18:00-20:00) War Studies Meeting Room (K6.07) Registration URL: http://bit.ly/2xCU4BY Join Adrian Garside to learn about the interface between politicised violence and natural resources in South Sudan's ongoing civil war. (DE)VILIFICATION OF THE FARC AND THE LINGUISTIC CEASE-FIRE 27th November 2017 (12:30-14:00) FWB (Franklin Wilkins Building), FWB 1.10 Registration: http://bit.ly/2zK1IQD Villains need to be de-villainised for talking to begin; this is a cornerstone of negotiation literature. But what happens when villains are proscribed, or listed as a terrorist organisation? CSSS SEMINAR: MULTILATERAL ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT: IS IT WORTH ALL THE EFFORT? 28th November 2017 (18:00-20:00) Strand Campus, War Studies Meeting Room (K6.07) Registration URL: https://goo.gl/forms/FvYuRoJqDEMpCCfN2 Achieving multilateral instruments of arms control and disarmament requires sustained diplomatic effort and a great deal of patience. This podcast was produced by Jayne Peake and Ivan Seifert.

In light of the recent attacks in the UK, Dr Shiraz Maher and Dr Nina Musgrave comment on the issues of radicalisation and counterterrorism. Dr Maher is a lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and Deputy Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. Dr Nina Musgrave acts as Assistant Director at the Centre for Defence Studies. She is also the course tutor for the MA module on National Security in the Department of War Studies.